Part 27

But just then out came the farmer in his shirt, who had been waked by all this clatter, and wanted to see what was going on. So the thieves took to their heels, and Grizzel after them, upsetting the farmer in her flight.

“Stop, boys! stop, boys!” she screamed; but the farmer, who had only seen the black monster, grew so afraid that he could scarce stand, for he thought it was the Deil himself that had been in his sheepfold. The only help he knew was, to go indoors and wake up the whole house; and they all sat down to read and pray, for he had heard that was the way to send the Deil about his business.

Now the next night the thieves said they must go and steal a fat goose, and Grizzel was to shew them the way. So when they came to the goosepen, Grizzel was to go in and turn one out, for she knew the ways of the place, and the thieves were to stand outside and catch it. But as soon as ever she got in she began to scream,

“Will you have goose or gander? you may pick and choose here.”

“Hush hush! choose only a fine fat one”, said the thieves. “Yes, yes! but will you have goose or gander—goose or gander? you may pick and choose”, screamed Grizzel.

“Hush, hush! only choose one that’s fine and fat, and it’s all one to us whether it’s goose or gander; but do hold your jaw”, said they.

But while Grizzel and the thieves were settling this, one of the geese began to cackle, and then another cackled, and then the whole flock cackled and hissed, and out came the farmer to see what all the noise could mean, and away went the thieves, and Grizzel after them, at full speed, and the farmer thought again it was the black Deil flying away; for long-legged she was, and she had no skirts to hamper her.

“Stop a bit, boys!” she kept on screaming, “you might as well have said whether you would have goose or gander?”

But they had no time to stop, they thought; and, as for the farmer, he began to read and pray with all his house, small and great, for they thought it was the Deil, and no mistake.

Now, the third day, when night came, the thieves and Grizzel were so hungry they did not know what to do; so they made up their minds to go to the larder of a rich farmer, who lived by the wood’s side, and steal some food. Well, off they went, but the thieves did not dare to venture themselves, so Grizzel was to go up the steps which led to the larder, and hand the food out, and the others were to stand below and take it from her. So when Grizzel got inside, she saw the larder was full of all sorts of things, fresh meat and salt, and sausages and oat-cake. The thieves begged her to be still, and just throw out something to eat, and to bear in mind how badly they had fated for two nights. But Grizzel stuck to her own, that she did.

“Will you have fresh meat, or salt, or sausages, or oat-cake? Just look, what a lovely oat-cake”, she bawled out enough to split your head. “You may have what you please, for here’s plenty to choose from.”

But the farmer woke with all this noise, and ran out to see what it all meant. As for the thieves, off they ran as fast as they could; but while the farmer was looking after them, down came Grizzel so black and ugly.

“Stop a bit! stop a bit, boys!” she bellowed; “you may have what you please, for there’s plenty to choose from.”

And when the farmer saw that ugly monster, he, too, thought the Deil was loose, for he had heard what had happened to his neighbours the evenings before; so he began both to read and pray, and every one in the whole parish began to read and pray, for they knew that you could read the Deil away.

The next evening was Saturday evening, and the thieves wanted to steal a fat ram for their Sunday dinner; and well they might, for they had fasted many days. But they wouldn’t have Grizzel with them at any price. She brought bad luck with her jaw, they said; so while Grizzel was walking about waiting for them on Sunday morning, she got so awfully hungry—for she had fasted for three days—that she went into a turnip-field and pulled up some turnips to eat. But when the farmer who owned the turnips rose, he felt uneasy in his mind, and thought he would just go and take a look at his turnips on the Sunday morning. So he pulled on his trousers and went across the moss which lay under the hill, where the turnip-field lay. But when he got to the bottom of the field, he saw something black walking about in the field and pulling up his turnips, and he soon made up his mind that it was the Deil. So away he ran home as fast as he could, and said the Deil was among the turnips. This frightened the whole house out of their wits, and they agreed they’d best send for the priest, and get him to bind the Deil.

“That won’t do”, said the goodwife, “this is Sunday morning, you’ll never get the priest to come; for either he’ll be in bed; or if he’s up, he’ll be learning his sermon by heart.”

“Oh!” said the goodman, “never fear; I’ll promise him a fat loin of veal, and then he’ll come fast enough.”

So off he went to the priest’s house; but when he got there, sure enough, the priest was still in bed. The maid begged the farmer to walk into the parlour while she ran up to the priest, and said:

“Farmer So-and-So was downstairs, and wished to have a word with him.”

Well! when the priest heard that such a worthy man was downstairs, he got up at once, and came down just as he was, in his slippers and nightcap.

So the goodman told his errand; how the Deil was loose in his turnip-field; and if the priest would only come and bind him, he would send him a fat loin of veal. Yes! the priest was willing enough, and called out to his groom, to saddle his horse, while he dressed himself.

“Nay, nay, father!” said the man; “the Deil won’t wait for us long, and no one knows where we shall find him again if we miss him now. Your reverence must come at once, just as you are.”

So the priest followed him just as he was, with the clothes he stood in, and went off in his nightcap and slippers. But when they got to the moss, it was so moist the priest couldn’t cross it in his slippers. So the goodman took him on his back to carry him over. On they went, the goodman picking his way from one clump to the other, till they got to the middle; then Grizzel caught sight of them, and thought it was the thieves bringing the ram.

“Is he fat?” she screamed; “is he fat?” and made such a noise that the wood rang again.

“The Deil knows if he’s fat or lean; I’m sure I don’t”, said the goodman, when he heard that; “but, if you want to know, you had better come yourself and see.”

And then he got so afraid, he threw the priest head over heels into the soft wet moss, and took to his legs; and if the priest hasn’t got out, why I dare say he’s lying there still.

THE LAD WHO WENT TO THE NORTH WIND

Once on a time there was an old widow who had one son; and as she was poorly and weak, her son had to go up into the safe to fetch meal for cooking; but when he got outside the safe, and was just going down the steps, there came the North Wind, puffing and blowing, caught up the meal, and so away with it through the air. Then the lad went back into the safe for more; but when he came out again on the steps, if the North Wind didn’t come again and carry off the meal with a puff; and, more than that, he did so the third time. At this the lad got very angry; and as he thought it hard that the North Wind should behave so, he thought he’d just look him up, and ask him to give up his meal.

So off he went, but the way was long, and he walked and walked; but at last he came to the North Wind’s house.

“Good day!” said the lad, “and thank you for coming to see us yesterday.”

“GOOD DAY!” answered the North Wind, for his voice was loud and gruff, “AND THANKS FOR COMING TO SEE ME. WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

“Oh!” answered the lad, “I only wished to ask you to be so good as to let me have back that meal you took from me on the safe steps, for we haven’t much to live on; and if you’re to go on snapping up the morsel we have, there’ll be nothing for it but to starve.”

“I haven’t got your meal”, said the North Wind; “but if you are in such need, I’ll give you a cloth which will get you everything you want, if you only say, “Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good dishes!”

With this the lad was well content. But, as the way was so long he couldn’t get home in one day, so he turned into an inn on the way; and when they were going to sit down to supper he laid the cloth on a table which stood in the corner, and said,

“Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kinds of good dishes.”

He had scarce said so before the cloth did as it was bid; and all who stood by thought it a fine thing, but most of all the landlady. So, when all were fast asleep at dead of night, she took the lad’s cloth, and put another in its stead, just like the one he had got from the North Wind, but which couldn’t so much as serve up a bit of dry bread.

So, when the lad woke, he took his cloth and went off with it, and that day he got home to his mother.

“Now”, said he, “I’ve been to the North Wind’s house, and a good fellow he is, for he gave me this cloth, and when I only say to it, ‘Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good dishes’, I get any sort of food I please.”

“All very true, I daresay,” said his mother; “but seeing is believing, and I shan’t believe it till I see it.”

So the lad made haste, drew out a table, laid the cloth on it, and said:

“Cloth, spread yourself, and serve up all kind of good dishes.”

But never a bit of dry bread did the cloth serve up.

“Well”, said the lad, “there’s no help for it but to go to the North Wind again”; and away he went.

So he came to where the North Wind lived late in the afternoon.

“Good evening!” said the lad.

“Good evening!” said the North Wind.

“I want my rights for that meal of ours which you took”, said the lad; “for, as for that cloth I got, it isn’t worth a penny.”

“I’ve got no meal”, said the North Wind; “but yonder you have a ram which coins nothing but golden ducats as soon as you say to it:

‘Rain, ram! make money!’

So the lad thought this a fine thing; but as it was too far to get home that day, he turned in for the night to the same inn where he had slept before.

Before he called for anything, he tried the truth of what the North Wind had said of the ram, and found it all right; but, when the landlord saw that, he thought it was a famous ram, and, when the lad had fallen asleep, he took another which couldn’t coin gold ducats, and changed the two.

Next morning off went the lad; and when he got home to his mother, he said:

“After all, the North Wind is a jolly fellow; for now he has given me a ram which can coin golden ducats if I only say ‘Ram, ram! make money.’”

“All very true, I daresay”, said his mother; “but I shan’t believe any such stuff until I see the ducats made.”

“Ram, ram! make money!” said the lad; but if the Ram made anything, it wasn’t money.

So the lad went back again to the North Wind, and blew him up, and said the ram was worth nothing, and he must have his rights for the meal.

“Well!” said the North Wind; “I’ve nothing else to give you but that old stick in the corner yonder; but it’s a stick of that kind that if you say:

“‘Stick, stick! lay on!’ it lays on till you say: ‘Stick, stick! now stop!’”

So, as the way was long, the lad turned in this night too to the landlord; but as he could pretty well guess how things stood as to the cloth and the ram, he lay down at once on the bench and began to snore, as if he were asleep.

Now the landlord, who easily saw that the stick must be worth something, hunted up one which was like it, and when he heard the lad snore, was going to change the two; but, just as the landlord was about to take it, the lad bawled out: “Stick, stick! lay on!”

So the stick began to beat the landlord, till he jumped over chairs, and tables, and benches, and yelled and roared:

“Oh my! oh my! bid the stick be still, else it will beat me to death, and you shall have back both your cloth and our ram.”

When the lad thought the landlord had got enough, he said:

“Stick, stick! now stop!”

Then he took the cloth and put it into his pocket, and went home with his stick in his hand, leading the ram by a cord round its horns; and so he got his rights for the meal he had lost.

THE MASTER THIEF

Once upon a time there was a poor cottager who had three sons. He had nothing to leave them when he died, and no money with which to put them to any trade, so that he did not know what to make of them. At last he said he would give them leave to take to anything each liked best, and to go whithersoever they pleased, and he would go with them a bit of the way; and so he did. He went with them till they came to a place where three roads met, and there each of them chose a road, and their father bade them good-bye, and went back home. I have never heard tell what became of the two elder; but as for the youngest, he went both far and long, as you shall hear.

So it fell out one night as he was going through a great wood that such bad weather overtook him. It blew, and sleeted, and drove so that he could scarce keep his eyes open; and in a trice, before he knew how it was, he got bewildered, and could not find either road or path. But as he went on and on, at last he saw a glimmering of light far far off in the wood. So he thought he would try and get to the light; and after a time he did reach it. There it was in a large house, and the fire was blazing so brightly inside, that he could tell the folk had not yet gone to bed; so he went in and saw an old dame bustling about and minding the house.

“Good evening!” said the youth.

“Good evening!” said the old dame.

“Hutetu! it’s such foul weather out of doors to-night”, said he.

“So it is”, said she.

“Can I get leave to have a bed and shelter here to-night?” asked the youth.

“You’ll get no good by sleeping here”, said the old dame; “for if the folk come home and find you here, they’ll kill both me and you.”

“What sort of folk, then, are they who live here?” asked the youth.

“Oh, robbers! And a bad lot of them too”, said the old dame. “They stole me away when I was little, and have kept me as their housekeeper ever since.”

“Well, for all that, I think I’ll just go to bed”, said the youth. “Come what may, I’ll not stir out at night in such weather.”

“Very well”, said the old dame; “but if you stay, it will be the worse for you.”

With that the youth got into a bed which stood there, but he dared not go to sleep, and very soon after in came the robbers; so the old dame told them how a stranger fellow had come in whom she had not been able to get out of the house again.

“Did you see if he had any money?” said the robbers.

“Such a one as he money!” said the old dame, “the tramper! Why, if he had clothes to his back, it was as much as he had.”

Then the robbers began to talk among themselves what they should do with him; if they should kill him outright, or what else they should do. Meantime the youth got up and began to talk to them, and to ask if they didn’t want a servant, for it might be that he would be glad to enter their service.

“Oh”, said they, “if you have a mind to follow the trade that we follow, you can very well get a place here.”

“It’s all one to me what trade I follow”, said the youth; “for when I left home, father gave me leave to take to any trade I chose.”

“Well, have you a mind to steal?” asked the robbers.

“I don’t care”, said the youth, for he thought it would not take long to learn that trade.

Now there lived a man a little way off who had three oxen. One of these he was to take to the town to sell, and the robbers had heard what he was going to do, so they said to the youth, if he were good to steal the ox from the man by the way without his knowing it, and without doing him any harm, they would give him leave to be their serving-man.

Well! the youth set off, and took with him a pretty shoe, with a silver buckle on it, which lay about the house; and he put the shoe in the road along which the man was going with his ox; and when he had done that, he went into the wood and hid himself under a bush. So when the man came by he saw the shoe at once.

“That’s a nice shoe”, said he. “If I only had the fellow to it, I’d take it home with me, and perhaps I’d put my old dame in a good humour for once.” For you must know he had an old wife, so cross and snappish, it was not long between each time that she boxed his ears. But then he bethought him that he could do nothing with the odd shoe unless he had the fellow to it; so he went on his way and let the shoe lie on the road.

Then the youth took up the shoe, and made all the haste he could to get before the man by a short cut through the wood, and laid it down before him in the road again. When the man came along with his ox, he got quite angry with himself for being so dull as to leave the fellow to the shoe lying in the road instead of taking it with him; so he tied the ox to the fence, and said to himself, “I may just as well run back and pick up the other, and then I’ll have a pair of good shoes for my old dame, and so, perhaps, I’ll get a kind word from her for once.”

So he set off, and hunted and hunted up and down for the shoe, but no shoe did he find; and at length he had to go back with the one he had. But, meanwhile the youth had taken the ox and gone off with it; and when the man came and saw his ox gone, he began to cry and bewail, for he was afraid his old dame would kill him outright when she came to know that the ox was lost. But just then it came across his mind that he would go home and take the second ox, and drive it to the town, and not let his old dame know anything about the matter. So he did this, and went home and took the ox without his dame’s knowing it, and set off with it to the town. But the robbers knew all about it, and they said to the youth, if he could get this ox too, without the man’s knowing it, and without his doing him any harm, he should be as good as any one of them. If that were all, the youth said, he did not think it a very hard thing.

This time he took with him a rope, and hung himself up under the arm-pits to a tree right in the man’s way. So the man came along with his ox, and when he saw such a sight hanging there he began to feel a little queer.

“Well”, said he, “whatever heavy thoughts you had who have hanged yourself up there, it can’t be helped; you may hang for what I care! I can’t breathe life into you again”; and with that he went on his way with his ox. Down slipped the youth from the tree, and ran by a footpath, and got before the man, and hung himself up right in his way again.

“Bless me!” said the man, “were you really so heavy at heart that you hanged yourself up there—or is it only a piece of witchcraft that I see before me? Aye, aye! you may hang for all I care, whether you are a ghost or whatever you are.” So he passed on with his ox.

Now the youth did just as he had done twice before; he jumped down from the tree, ran through the wood by a footpath, and hung himself up right in the man’s way again. But when the man saw this sight for the third time, he said to himself:

“Well! this is an ugly business! Is it likely now that they should have been so heavy at heart as to hang themselves, all these three? No! I cannot think it is anything else than a piece of witchcraft that I see. But now I’ll soon know for certain; if the other two are still hanging there, it must be really so; but if they are not, then it can be nothing but witchcraft that I see.”